


I keep you near, yet there you remain.

by everybreatheverymove



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-06 22:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10345638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybreatheverymove/pseuds/everybreatheverymove
Summary: It’s not that she’s his favourite person. No fuckin’ way. It’s just that he likes her a little bit more than everybody else.





	

It’s not that she’s his favourite person. Fuck no.

It’s just that he dislikes her a little bit less than everybody else.

Dan Egan does not like people. It’s been fact for as long as be can remember. They breathe in your air, suck up all your oxygen, take up your space.

Human relationships are only necessary - are vital, almost - to fulfil one’s ambition, and he only partakes in social interaction because he’s ambitious as hell and he’s desperate for his greed to be sated.

He knows it won’t ever be, though. He’s always wanted one thing after the other, always waited until one plan fell through or fell into place, and then he was on to the next one.

He would never - could never - be satisfied, at least not in ways he assumes regular, boring people want to be. Ambition is evil, and so he must be the Antichrist.

Human relationships are overrated, and if there’s no profit to be gained from a long, draining conversation, then Dan Egan would rather walk into incoming traffic and get hit by a truck.

He’s willing to make one exception to this rule, though. While he fakes and fucks his way through life all the way up to the top of the political ladder he’s set up for himself, it isn’t often he finds someone whose company he doesn’t completely loathe.

But she is an exception, in a way. Honestly, fuck Amy Brookheimer. Fuck her and the fuckin’ hobbit step stool she rode in on.

Working with her was never supposed to be the only decent thing to come out of his time in the Meyer office. Working with her was never supposed to put a smile on his face. Not a smirk, a fucking smile. It’s a thin, thin line between the two, he reminds himself. And she barely holds his gaze long enough to notice anyway.

He likes to taunt her, about their past, about their end. And she takes it, gives it back like a champ.

It’s admiration mostly, he guesses. She’s hardcore with a backbone carved out of smooth steel, and her skin seems fairly resolute on remaining in one piece.

She doesn’t let the cracks show, doesn’t want the bumps and bruises she submits herself to to reveal themselves.

He’s ice, but she’s a fucking storm.

She breaks sometimes. Dan knows this.

He broke her (once), he likes to think, and her mom likes to suggest. He’s caught the eye of the storm, watched her façade slowly wither away until there was only a shell of a human left.

A shell is who she is, though, and he relates to her because of this. They aren’t people; they’re soulless entities on a bumpy warpath to political cloud nine.

They aren’t people, not like everyone else at least. They’re ruthless and he’s reckless and she’s just a fucking mess.

She’s scalding hot when he’s cold, and she’s freezing when he’s only just lukewarm. She’s a storm out in the open sea crashing against the edge of his frozen iceberg; rubbing him the wrong way, torturously teasing him with the force of her nature.

Presently, her storm is raging and he can practically feel the cold shards of ice splinter from her body and scatter at her feet. She is stiff and unmoving, and he wants to throw their sad excuse of a press secretary under a speeding bus.

Mike has just thrown a grenade into Amy’s lap, ducked for cover, and it’s a fuck-up the size of Canada.

He can’t help but admire her rigidity sometimes, usually with one raised brow and a hint of a smirk dancing along his lips. It’s quite fun to watch; when she gets anxious or pissed off and her body seems to react as though rigor mortis is setting in.

The ways in which the muscles of her neck contract and tighten, bony collarbones exposed through whatever blouse or sweater or fuckin’ dress she’s wearing.

He swears she’s going to implode someday soon, just let all blood vessels pop and burst and finally succumb to the pressure she puts on them.

The ways in which her broad shoulders stiffen and her arms seem to freeze at her sides; precious phone clutched so tightly in one hand it’s basically moulded into her palm; he’s almost certain she wouldn’t even notice if it crumpled to pieces.

Her head is gonna fall from those heavy shoulders one day, and he wants to be the one who drops it onto Selina’s desk when it does. _This is the price of your own self-importance, ma'am. Was it fucking worth it?_

Her lips draw thin, and he can already tell that her teeth are grinding, smashing against each other behind her closed mouth. Sleek blonde hair is hanging down at her shoulders and he kind of wants to pull at it, run his fingers through her hair and shake her back to alertness.

_Wake the fuck up, Amy. Don’t leave me here with these idiots._

Her jaw is going to ache and she’s probably gonna bitch about it for ten minutes later, when Selina’s gone and it’s a safe space to talk about something other than the incompetent president they hitched their wagons to.

Knuckles white around her phone, she looks like she’s going to combust. Mainly due to the fact that Mike spoke exactly nine words in three seconds and then left the room like the coward he is. Dan has half a mind to follow him down the hall and corner him into fixing his own fuck-ups.

Flicking on the switch of the coffee pot, Dan studies her for a moment longer. She needs to fucking calm down, to unwind. He’s already planning to get Sue to book her a meeting with a shrink.

Eyes wide, this inner meltdown she’s experiencing is taking longer to overcome than usual. She’d have pulled her phone back up to her face by now and muttered something beneath her breath about Mike being a fucking imbecile.

Dan doesn’t know what the guy said - honestly, half the time he likes to deny his entire existence - but it wasn’t good for her, or them.

“Amy.” He snaps his fingers down at her, waits for a response. She’s small next to him, a whole foot shorter despite her attempt at gaining some height from the heels she always wears. He won’t ever admit it, but he kind of likes the contrast, the power that seems to come from towering over her.

It’s not a power play between them. They’re on the same step of the same ladder and he silently likes to think of her as his equal. Their suicide pact is still in play, even if neither of them ever speak of it. You jump, I jump. I go, you go. You walk, I carry your boxes and put them into the car for you.

She blinks once and licks her lips, and he can see the strained muscles of her neck stretching as far as they can go, forcing dehydrated veins to throb without tearing through her skin. “Amy.” She hasn’t eaten all day; he’s observed her long enough to notice.

He’s a shit. He knows he’s a shit, and she knows it, too - probably better than anyone.

But he makes two coffees anyway, holds one out to her, his usual shit-eating frat boy grin replaced with a blank stare when she seems to refuse the offer, “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, just take the coffee. It’s not like I poisoned it.”

“You poison everything you touch, Dan.”

And she’s back, straight blonde hair swaying as she moves in her small heels, looking like she’s trying to gain some height against him. Leaning on her left foot, she spots him eyeing her and scowls.

He only shrugs, kind of nods with his head tilted when she finally takes the mug and walks away, breathing distance between them, “Explains why you’re so toxic.”

“Like I’d ever let you touch me long enough to spread your fucking venom.”

Honestly… Fuck, Amy Brookheimer.

It’s not that she’s his favourite person. No fuckin’ way.

It’s just that he likes her a little bit more than everybody else.


End file.
